


Don’t Take It Away From Me

by HotCrossPigeon



Series: Hurt!Aziraphale Stories [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angelic Essence, Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale Whump (Good Omens), Aziraphale whump, Bad Archangels, Blood, Crowley Angst, Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Desperate Crowley, Fatal Wounds, First Kiss, Happy Ending, Hurt Aziraphale (Good Omens), Hurt/Comfort, I actually am a little sorry, Love Confessions, M/M, Protective Crowley, Sad Crowley, Sorry Not Sorry, Temporary Character Death, Whump, Wings, Worried Crowley, Wounded Aziraphale, all the feels, hurt!Aziraphale, why did I write this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2019-08-23
Packaged: 2020-08-20 00:23:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20218735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HotCrossPigeon/pseuds/HotCrossPigeon
Summary: When the Archangels cornered Aziraphale outside his bookshop, it wasn’t to deliver a threat, or even a warning punch to the stomach.Instead, Uriel held a blade.





	1. Bad Angels

**Author's Note:**

> I am consumed. Completely smitten. Somebody help.  
You know when you’re wading through all the lovely stories here, full of cute little drunken bookshop scenes, and crepes for two, and dining at the Ritz at nine precisely, and snuggles on sofas, and you think to yourself - oh, what a wonderful fandom. I might try my hand at writing something. And then three days later, you look at your own contribution, that just rushed out of your head, unbidden, like so much mental diarrhoea and you go, oh dear. Oh no. What have I done?  
This is not for the faint hearted. I’m so very, very sorry!  
Enjoy!

The pain in his abdomen was intense, hot, searing, and he wasn’t entirely sure when it had even happened.

He was still reeling from the Archangels’ stoicism in the face of his attempts to plead with them. It seemed he had been down here for so long, that he’d simply forgotten what Heaven was truly like. There was no reasoning in the face of blind obedient faith, and he should have realised that it was actually a very dangerous thing to do.

His usual stammering and open smiles, and self-flagellating mumbles of _oh dear, now where did that old flaming sword of mine get to, I really am very silly, would probably lose my head if I truly even had one outside my corporeal form, cup of tea, Gabriel?_ weren’t quite doing the trick this time.

It seemed as though the other angels had finally had enough of their wayward Principality.

Aziraphale thought he had been punched. He was rather put out by it.

It was decidedly not a very nice thing to do, and certainly unbecoming of angels, especially those of a higher rank than him. Surely, they should know better than to resort to wanton acts of violence.

“You’re supposed to be the _good_ guys!” He insisted, bent over in shock and pain.

But really, he shouldn’t have been surprised. Crowley had tried to warn him that they were on their own side, and that Heaven was just as bad as Hell at this point, but Aziraphale had hoped and prayed that the demon was wrong. He felt so very lost and small as he came to the inevitable conclusion that Crowley had been right all along.

The angels stepped back away from him with a look of smug superiority on their faces, there was the clang of something metallic hitting the pavement, and then they were called back to Heaven in a beam of harsh, blinding white light. Gone in the searing of a retina.

Aziraphale blinked against the fading heavenly light, and staggered back against the door of his beloved bookshop so hard that it rattled the old windows. Fumbled with the doorknob. Let himself inside.

It was only once he was safely sequestered in his home of the last few centuries, the door solidly closed behind him and locking without a word, the small bell above the door tinkling, and the comforting smell of old books all around him, that he thought he ought to look down at himself and see what all that pain was about. Perhaps he’d been bruised.

He looked down.

Oh.

Oh, no.

Oh, his poor, dear waistcoat. It was surely ruined. Nothing ever truly managed to get blood out. It always seemed to stain so terribly, and left an echo of misery in the material that even the most well meaning miracle couldn’t vanish. He felt the loss keenly, and lamented the garment for a good minute or two, and only then did it dawn on him that this might actually be something quite serious.

He had thought he had been punched. An echo of earlier, in the park, when Gabriel had nudged at his paunch with a fist, mocking his softness. He’d never been truly hurt by a fellow angel before, not physically at least. Heaven always liked to deal out their punishments much more creatively, and in that way, they were often crueller than Hell.

_Oh dear, _thought Aziraphale, numbly. He pressed a hand delicately against his waistcoat, and his fingers came back with something more than blood on them.

Gold clung to his palm and the soft pads of his fingertips, twinkling gently like embers from a dying fire.

This was no ordinary wound, it bit and burnt right down to his very essence.

Over the many years, Aziraphale had found himself injured on a number of occasions. He had even been discorporated a fair few times, mostly out of his own general incompetence and inability to get out of the way in time. It was something of a point of contention between himself and Crowley. They had a tally going, and a wager of sorts; a sum of money, bragging rights for a century, and one favour of choice. Crowley was winning, naturally. His ability to slither out of all manner of dangerous situations using his demonic wiles - or his literal ability to slither away, he was a serpent after all - was unmatched.

And Aziraphale feared, with the events today being what they were, that he had surely lost to the demon this time. Oh, and he had been so looking forward to making the demon sit through the Sound of Music. He had an inkling that the demon had something equally nefarious planned for him. It didn’t appear that he would ever find out what that was.

He gasped as the wound twinged, a pain like no other shooting through his soul like a blazing arrow and he was suddenly unable to keep himself upright. He leant heavily on a nearby bookcase, and then instantly despaired over getting blood on the pristinely kept bookcovers, and stumbled forward instead.

Heaven had done this, the Archangels had gone this. But, perhaps, if he could just speak to Her, if he could only explain, she would surely listen, would surely help him, or even the Metatron, anyone higher, anyone at all - he hadn’t Fallen just yet. He was still worthy of Her love, he could be healed, if he just...

Aziraphale tugged at the carpet with a brogued foot, managing to drag it half away to reveal the white chalk circle on the floorboards, before he pitched over onto the floor and landed hard on one elbow.

His face squashed against the wooden floorboards for a moment, and as uncomfortable as it was, it gave him precious time to think things over properly.

And he realised that he just couldn’t go through with it.

Aziraphale was many things; a little gluttonous, a little soft, a little snappy at overzealous customers, a little smug when a certain demon deserved it, a little, well, actually a lot, unangelic. If he was honest with himself, which he very rarely was. Yes, he was many things that he probably ought not to be, but he wasn’t stupid. Quite the opposite, in fact.

He had a few ideas about why the Archangels had done this to him, and none of them were easy to swallow. They couldn’t hope to get away with it entirely, stabbing a fellow angel and leaving him to die wasn’t actually something that Heaven could condone, no matter how they played it. He hadn’t actually done anything wrong. Well. Not yet, anyway. He hadn’t had a chance to make a stand against Armaggedon. And he hadn’t, though God only knew why, Fallen.

And yet, the Archangels had stabbed him all the same.

He curled an arm around his middle, protectively. Whatever they had used to injure him had been of demonic make, of that he had no doubt. Nothing else could harm an angel’s ethereal form. Which meant, if he went to Heaven in this state, looking for healing, they would assume that Hell had done this. That Hell had finally had enough, had finally snapped and attacked one of Heaven’s own.

They would never believe that it was the Archangels, and they would never take a Principality’s word over three of them. They might even blame it on Crowley. Argue that Aziraphale was too enamoured with the demon to notice the double-cross until it was too late. That he was too ashamed of his partnership with the other side, to admit that it had been the demon who had mortally wounded him. And wouldn’t that just be the cherry on top. He’d be damned before he would take Crowley down with him.

And so, it would be war. The Big One. Worse even, than Armageddon.

Angels against Demons. And if they ever managed to save the Earth, as unlikely as that was currently looking, humans would no doubt get caught in the crossfire.

It was all looking rather bleak.

No. Thought Aziraphale, as he lay curled on the floor. He really must put his foot down. Stomp it, in a miffed sort of way, without scuffing his impeccably-cared-for brogues, but stomp it all the same. He was tired of always doing what his superiors expected of him, and quite frankly, he refused to let his final act on Earth do anything to further their malicious ends. He would hardly let himself be used by them any longer, nothing but a pawn in a war he had never wanted to fight in.

And that was that, really.

He could be quite the stubborn angel, when he put his mind to it.

So, he merely picked himself up, laboriously, unsteadily, one hand pressed over his wound, and somehow, he managed to wobble off for a few metres, to the left, away from his only hope of salvation.

“Oh,” sobbed the angel, once. His eyes fierce. “_Fuck_ them,” he said, and felt a little better for it.

He sank to the ground for a few moments, getting his breath back. Not that he needed to breathe, but it certainly helped clear his head. And then he snapped upwards in alarm.

Crowley! Oh, _heavens_! He had to warn Crowley!

Perhaps, at this very moment, a demon with a similarly cursed blade was convening to attack his counterpart at his flat in Mayfair. Heaven would blame Crowley for his death, and Hell would blame Aziraphale for the demon’s.

No, _no_. Aziraphale found that he couldn’t bare the thought.

Somehow, haltingly, he heaved himself to standing, and made it to the desk and the old fashioned telephone that sat dutifully atop it. There was so much blood on the numbers from his desperate shaking hands that it was getting a little hard to read them properly. He poked his manicured fingers into the divets of the phone’s wheel and rotated them clockwise, perching the receiver onto his shoulder and putting his ear to it to hold it in place.

Crowley’s ansaphone clicked into being. Oh, now really, did he never answer the dratted thing anymore? Couldn’t he tell it was an emergency?

_\- know what to do, do it with style._

_\- Beeeep._

“Crowley? My dear, ah, are you there?”

His vision was warping something terrible, like watercolour blotching under a wet brush. He supposed it was most likely from his damaged ethereal form, and it’s woe begotten attempts to cling to a body that was rapidly deteriorating. Oh, bother. He was making a mess of things. And suddenly, he found himself sat awkwardly on the floor again, having slid from his position of leaning rather alarmingly on the desk.

Aziraphale liked to sit down, he enjoyed it and often found it to be quite an agreeable position to spend one’s time in. Especially when said sitting down also included a cup of hot cocoa and the promise of a few hours alone with a good book. On this rare occasion however, and because it was quite involuntary, he found sitting to be a rather frustrating experience indeed.

Unfortunately, he didn’t think he had it in him to get up again.

The angel breathed for a moment, closing his eyes. The phone was wedged into his shoulder still, the coiled line pulled taught. He managed to muster up some strength. Mixed it with indignation. Served it stubbornly hot. “I would very much appreciate it,” he snapped, “if you could answer the telephone!”

Crowley didn’t. There was nothing but the crinkling of static on the line. Perhaps it was already too late. No, he wouldn’t allow himself to entertain the thought.

“I hope you know that this is _terribly_ inconvenient of you,” he said instead, for some reason, finding himself getting a little choked up. A breath helped to steady him. “I seem to have landed myself in a spot of bother, and may require your help. If you could make haste to the bookshop...”

He fumbled. Stopped. Breathed. Closed his eyes in sorrow.

“No. No, that won’t do at all,” he said, softly. “On second thought, that’s a truly terrible idea. They might find you here, and I... I would _never_ forgive myself. Find somewhere safe. Be safe. Please, my dear... if you could promise me...”

The phone slipped.


	2. In Which Crowley Loses His Shit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My heartfelt thanks to GentleTouchGinger and charliebrown1234 for beta-reading this chapter, you both are truly wonderful, and I am indebted to you!  
Thank you so much for reading this story, it means the world to me. On to chapter two!

Crowley was out of the door before the message ended.

He had only just got into the flat when he saw the red flashing light on the ansaphone, and he had absently flicked it to play while he sauntered off to shout at his plants. Needless to say, he hadn’t even managed to frighten the peace lilies, let alone the rest of them, before the sound of Aziraphale’s unusually wobbly voice crackling out from the ansaphone’s speakers made all of the demonic scales on his spine stand on end. If such a thing were possible.

He was in the Bentley within ten seconds, dodging red lights, pedestrians, police, and pulling up alarmingly fast at the bookshop with a screech of smoking tyres.

He’d never been so fucking terrified in his life.

He leapt out of the car and ran as if the winds of Hell - or Heaven, or who the fuck cared - were at his heels,and straight up to the angel’s front door. His foot nudged against something hard - kicked it up against the step, and there was an odd tinny scrape of metal on concrete. He looked down.

Lying discarded on the doorstep, was a knife. There was blood on it.

_Well,_ thought Crowley, mind stuttering in panic, _that didn’t fucking bode well, did it._

He picked it up, feeling a shudder run up his spine, and then immediately turned to the bookshop’s door, trying not to discorporate from the feeling of pure unadulterated fear that shot through him at the sight.

There was blood on the door handle too. He opened it and went inside.

His yellow eyes caught on a bookshelf next, where more blood glimmered in the shape of angelic fingerprints, and there it was again, splattered in droplets on the floor. All of it speckled with golden light.

Crowley had forgotten how to breathe.

“Angel?” He called out, when he couldn’t immediately see him. “Aziraphale? _Aziraphale_! Answer me you idiot! _Aziraphale?!_”

He stepped forward, but the angel was nowhere to be seen. He spun in a circle, his yellow eyes nearly popping out of his head as he searched desperately for a sign of the angel beyond the alarming amounts of glittering blood,. Why did there have to be so many bloody books in the bloody way?

“Angel!”

Crowley’s hand jolted with a sudden fizzle of dark, demonic energy, and he swore in pain, looking at the knife in his hand properly for the first time with a hollow feeling of panic.

The handle was wrapped in some kind of thick cloth to prevent the bearer from any harm, and the blade was shining with a mix of human and ethereal blood. The sigils on the metal itself were cruel, and seemed to soak up the gore like a sponge. This was bad. This was really bad. He couldn’t heal a wound made by this, not that he was much of a healer in the first place, but demonic blades thrown into the mix tended to make things even more blasted fiddly than they already were.

Demons didn’t have the necessary finesse required for healing. Want a head lopped off, fine. Couple of limbs, great. Bit of disembowelment, demon’s your man. Er, demon’s your demon. But stabbed with a demonic blade, well, unless you wanted a demon to be the one doing the stabbing, they couldn’t really help much in the aftermath. Hastur’s maggots could sometimes deal with the necrotic tissue, but the wriggly little buggers often got a bit too bitey, and ended up consuming the entire body if given half the chance.

Crowley was thinking too much.

The point was... the point _was_...

Maggots.

_No, _he thought, rubbing a shaking hand across his mouth, and glaring at the blade in his hand like he could melt it into a puddle of black goop, _that wasn’t the point at all._

He might have been in shock. Seeing your best friend’s ethereal blood about the place can do that. In any case, he reasoned, any demonic miracle he tried would just make the whole bloody thing worse.

In short, they were royally fucked.

“Are you all right?” asked the subject of his current mental breakdown, or most of them, really, if he thought about it. Crowley whipped around, and there he was. Or his shoes at least, and the top of his fluffy head.

Aziraphale.

The angel’s aura was weak, diffused, like a drop of ink in water. No wonder Crowley hadn’t been able to find him; it was as if he was everywhere and nowhere, all at once.

He was sitting on the floor against the desk in the corner, partially hidden by a few stacks of books. No doubt they were destined to be sorted and put onto the shelves; the angel was fond of reorganising the many sections of his shop in order to confuse and therefore deter any customers who might be looking for something in particular. It looked like he hadn’t gotten around to it yet, and now, probably never would.

Crowley rushed forward on wobbly boneless legs, until he was able to fully take in the angel. Aziraphale’s back was straight, legs crossed neatly at the ankles. He was also, quite obviously, the source of all the blood.

The front of his waistcoat was dark, saturated, glimmering ephemerally.

“Perhaps you ought to sit down,” the angel offered, gently.

Crowley, for lack of anything better to do, and at that moment losing all control over his legs, did just that.

“What, angel, what -” he spluttered.

“Did you get my message? If so, I _specifically_ asked you not to come here, and to get yourself somewhere safe, and it seems as though you’ve completely ignored me. As usual. Although... I can’t honestly say that I’m not unspeakably glad to see you, my dear.”

The fact that the angel remained so articulate, while appearing so utterly, horrifyingly, distressingly close to death, momentarily threw Crowley. If he closed his eyes, he could pretend he’d simply popped round for lunch. He wondered if the angel was doing it on purpose. The lines of tight pain around Aziraphale’s eyes revealed the truth. The angel was trying to distract him.

Crowley took in a breath, and let it out. Then he screeched, “WHAT THE BUGGERING HELL _HAPPENED_?!”

“I may have been accosted outside the shop,” answered Aziraphale, primly. As if someone had chastised him by smacking him lightly on the hand, and telling him that he wasn’t to eat the last fruit scone or he’d surely spoil his dinner.

Crowley wondered if he might be going mad. “_Accosted_? Angel - they _stabbed_ you through with a _demonic blade_!”

“Oh, you found it?” Aziraphale peered at the knife with bleary eyes. “Jolly good.”

“Jolly - _jolly fucking_ \- Aziraphale!”

The angel leaned heavily sideways, eyelids dropping alarmingly.

“Oh, this is bad, this is - this is bad! You’ve got to discorporate,” Crowley said desperately, crawling over and taking the angel by the shoulders. “You hear me, angel? Take the express route straight up to Heaven, I know you’ve got a circle hidden around here somewhere. Come on, get up! You’ll die otherwise.”

Aziraphale just looked at him sadly and shook his head. “No,” he said.

“No? What do you mean, _no_? Did they whack you over the head too?” He checked the angel’s crown for damage, but there was none to be found. The white hair was ludicrously soft and curled under his fingertips, like fluffed downy feathers. He had always suspected this to be the case, and it was nice to have it confirmed.

Aziraphale didn’t seem to acknowledge the sudden petting. Or at least, he endured it.

“I... I can’t go Up There, Crowley. You must realise that it would be seen as a call to war. Even if you somehow managed to avert Armageddon, an angel stabbed by a hellfire blade... I fear that will rile up something even worse. A conflict between Heaven and Hell... a celestial war, Crowley.”

“Oh _sod_ Armageddon,” Crowley hissed. “And _sod_ the fucking war! Get your arse back up to Heaven _right now, _or I’ll...”

The angel was shaking his head again. He looked like he’d made his mind up. Aziraphale could be pretty stubborn like that, and once he got stuck in his ways there was no hauling him out of it. Well, not for a few decades anyway, and not without a few careful instances of demonic cajoling. Unfortunately, they didn’t have decades. By the looks of things, they didn’t even have hours.

“I won’t do it, Crowley.”

“Right, of course you won’t, you selfish bastard,” Crowley snarled as he got up and levered an arm behind Aziraphale to haul him away from the desk. “I’ll do it then, I don’t give a fuck what happens to anyone or anywhere else, as long as you don’t peg it on the floor like a stuck pig! Come on.” He had his hands under Aziraphale’s armpits, and attempted to drag him bodily over to the partially uncovered sigils painted on the floor.

A pained cry escaped the angel at the sudden movement. The sound of two voices, one corporeal, one on a different plane entirely, rang out with a tortured, agonised, dual scream that clanged against his very being.

Crowley skittered away from him immediately, hands thrown up in apology.

Aziraphale sounded like he was being torn apart. His wings manifested, breaking out of the aether, and immediately recoiling in agony.

Crowley blanched. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! Won’t try that again, promise, okay, just don’t...” His hands fluttered. They were covered in sticky blood. _Don’t ever make that sound again,_ he wanted to say, but his throat closed up. He got down on his knees.

Aziraphale had fallen backwards onto the floor, wings splayed awkwardly like a felled dove. He tremblingly hefted himself up against a bookcase, legs splayed in front of him in a manner he would never have normally allowed. Once upright, the angel clenched his eyes shut and wheezed for breath. The stain on his waistcoat had spread significantly, darkening the fabric with deep blooms of red that glowed faintly with angelic essence.

Crowley had never felt true panic before now. “Oh shit, shit shit. I’m sorry.”

The wan angel breathed, collecting himself. His wings lay limply, feathers spilling out onto the floor at his sides. “You must listen to me,” he continued, breathily, as if their conversation hadn’t been interrupted at all.

Crowley still felt the agonised scream rattling his bones, and didn’t understand how the angel could be so calm in the face of something so worldendingly horrible. But that was Aziraphale for you. He’d been slammed up against a wall by an angry demon and had barely batted an eyelid, merely readjusted his bow tie and tutted disapprovingly, smoothing down the jostled lapels of his beloved coat. It only stood to reason that when he was leaking angelic essence all over the place and literally _dying_, he only affected an air of mild annoyance.

He was really something. Crowley suddenly remembered why he loved the old bastard so bloody much.

“I very much doubt... that Heaven would help me anyway, seeing as they’re the ones... who instigated this,” the angel said, wearily.

“What?” Crowley felt a sudden cold settle on him; an ice that seeped down to his very bones. “You’re saying it was an _Angel_ that stabbed you? Outside your own bookshop? In broad bloody daylight?” His eyes glittering dangerously. “I’ll kill them. I’ll murder them. Who was it? Gabriel? That bastard! I’ll tear his eyes out! I’ll choke him with his own spleen, I’ll -”

“Crowley, please. Are you even listening to yourself? You really must calm down.”

“Calm down?” he screeched. “Calm _down_! You - you’re - _shit, bollocks_ \- you’re dying, angel. Do you even know that you’re fucking dying? I’m not exactly overreacting here! Just look, _look_ at it, your angely essencey bits are leaking out all over the bloody place!” He waggled his stained hands to emphasise his point, and a few wisps of gold, of Aziraphale’s life, winked off into the aether like fireflies.

“Well,” tutted Aziraphale, “I hardly think that shouting about it will change anything. Just listen to me, please. Going to Heaven will only make things worse.”

“It’ll save your life!”

“They would only find a way to end it sooner, my dear. This wasn’t done by a rogue angel, this was planned carefully. U-Uriel had the blade, but ah, there was also Michael. A-and Sandalphon.”

“Oh, _fuck_. Three Archangels?”

“Yes. If I wasn’t so put out by the whole thing,” Aziraphale said, breathily, “I might have been flattered.”

“And - Oh. Oh. Shit. They must have been cavorting with Hell to get that knife.” Crowley put his hands in his hair, realising the ramifications.

A full body shudder ran through the angel then. On another plane, his light was dwindling.

“I... I must admit, they’ve done a - a rather thorough job of it, all things considered,” Aziraphale explained, almost wistfully, “it’s definitely a good way of getting rid of a liability... either I die on this earthly plain, unable to stop Armageddon... or I try to enter Heaven, whereupon they use me as an excuse to start their own war. That’s all they’ve ever really wanted, in the end. A war. Both sides have put their minds together and come up with this.” He gestured down at himself, as if he were a rare treaty of some kind. “It’s almost admirable, really. Just think, if they weren’t so set in their ways, Heaven and Hell could have made excellent allies.”

“That’s nice,” said Crowley, patiently. Seethingly. Actual steam was coming out of his eyes and fogging up the lenses of his sunglasses. “Good for them, working together for once. Right. Glad that’s cleared up. Now. What the ACTUAL FLYING FUCK are we going to DO, angel?!”

“Oh now, really. Kindly put yourself out, dear. You’ll set light to the Dickens, and I shan’t ever forgive you.”

Crowley pat his hair out where it had suddenly burst aflame, and scowled hotly.

“I’m not about to just sit here and watch you die! There’s got to be another option.”

“There is.”

“There _is_?! Why didn’t you _lead_ with that - you know what? Never mind. Doesn’t matter. That’s great! I love options, big fan of options, me. So, what is it?”

The angel looked at him.

“You have to help me Fall,” he said.


	3. I Won’t Let You

“You have to help me Fall.”

Aziraphale said this quite calmly. As if he had meticulously picked over all of the possibilities, noted them down, and weighed their merits, contemplated their strengths, and found this to be the most likely solution. As if he were doing nothing more strenuous than completing a crossword puzzle in _The Sunday Times_, tapping his pencil against his lip in thought, and then filling in the blank squares carefully between sips of hot cocoa.

Crowley, on the other hand, nearly had an aneurysm.

“Help you _wot?!_”

A smile crossed Aziraphale’s rapidly paling face. Well, it was more of a grimace really, with the edges of his lips curved up to soften it. There were bloody fingerprints on his cheekbone, and under his eye, standing out starkly against his white skin.

“Come now,” said the listing angel, kindly, as if he were offering something as small as a cup of tea or a biscuit, and he wasn’t currently bleeding out onto the floorboards of his beloved bookshop at all. And Crowley was the mad one, actually, dear boy, and he was making a frightful fuss about nothing. “It’d be a real feather in your wing, my dear. After all these years, you could tell Downstairs... that you finally managed to tempt me.”

Crowley’s head was shaking before he even realised it. “Nope. No way. No.”

“My dear -”

“I can’t do that to you. Wouldn’t even know where to start, angel. You don’t even know what you’re asking.”

“Crowley, please... you’re not thinking logically. This is the only viable option left if we want to avoid playing into their hands. The blade was only meant to kill one of the heavenly host, it stands to reason that if I Fall now, there might be a chance, I can still... I’m not too... far gone, just...” he took in a short breath, anguish creasing his features for a long moment.

It was such a long, horrible moment that Crowley reached out and gripped the angel’s shoulder, hoping to ground him.

Aziraphale finally let out a shaky sigh, eyebrows drawing together and brow pinched in pain. His eyes were shining. “My dear,” he intoned, “if I remain an angel any longer, I really will be beyond help. No, I’m afraid there’s no other thing for it, I’ll simply have to become a demon.”

Crowley wondered if he could discorporate just from listening to such a blatantly stupid and ridiculous fucking idea.

“Oh, _oh_. Right! Well. You’ll simply _have_ to become a demon, will you?” He mimicked, angrily, “You - you absolute, complete idiot. You - you stupid - _stupid_ \- what do you think’s gonna happen? You think you can just hurl yourself off a cloud, and poof, instant demon? You’re too...” Good, pure, angelic. He waved a hand irritably. His fingers were shaking, and there was blood drying on them, flaking off like rust and sparks. “You.” Crowley settled on, sounding strangled. “You’re too bloody _you_, aren’t you. You can’t Fall. You’ve been doing temptations for years for me, and she’s let you get away with all of them. She’d only go and bloody catch you if you jumped. She’d have to be mad to let you go.”

Aziraphale looked at him, earnestly. Impossibly fond. “My dear, you think too highly of me.”

“I don’t. I just called you an idiot. Because you’re an idiot.”

“I surely am, in this at least. That’s precisely why I need you to help me, my dear. As you always do.”

His angel leaned forward.

“Help me,” he said, as if it wasn’t a question. Because it never was, not between them. When Aziraphale needed him, Crowley was always there. That’s the way it had always been.

The angel cupped Crowley’s cheek, his fingers were trembling and the touch of them was alarmingly cold. His blue eyes were wide and imploring.

He was so close that they breathed the same air.

And then he was closer still, impossibly close, and he brushed his lips against Crowley’s.

It was tender and achingly soft. Crowley went completely still, in shock, in wonder, in awe, in - in panic, yep, that was panic. That was sheer bloody panic.

The angel was kissing him.

Inside Crowley’s mind, all manner of hell had broken loose. Mishandled fireworks. Spontaneous explosions. Networks down. Tube strikes. Blackouts. The pox. Burst sewer pipes. You name it.

Aziraphale sat back with a small sigh that wobbled in the middle, pink tinging his cheeks. He looked to his drooping wings. Still blindingly white.

“Oh, bugger,” the angel mused, sadly. “I thought that might do the trick.”

“What,” Crowley mouthed, dazedly. Coming out of his stupor in the manner of someone who had drunk nine bottles of champagne, chased it with some tequila shots, and a bucket of drain cleaner, and had somehow clawed their way back into consciousness on the tiled floor of a pub toilet at four in the morning. “What did you...” He touched his lips, reverently. Still feeling the angel’s kiss there, like lingering sunlight. Warm and wet, his tongue flickered out to taste it. “You... you thought _kissing_ me would make you Fall?” He managed to say.

“Oh, of course not,” murmured the angel, contritely, “I thought _loving_ you would make me Fall. Or at least, finally admitting to it after all these years.”

If Crowley had thought he had been shocked before, it was nothing to how he felt now. It was like someone had upended a bucket of freezing Holy water over his head.

_This must be it,_ he thought, with reckless, dizzying abandon. _This is the end. This is what death feels like. Here I go. Christ in a fucking hot air balloon. I had a good innings._

“You _wot?!_” Crowley somehow managed to splutter, feeling his tongue fork and reptilian eyes bulge as if he was being squeezed.

Aziraphale looked at him with a painful softness. “I love you, my dear,” he said, and then winced, pressing his hand against his sluggishly bleeding wound, but still looking at Crowley with that look of open adoration he had come to know so well. “I’ve loved you for so very long. I’ve never been a very good angel, I’m afraid. I thought if I finally acted upon what I’d been feeling, it would be enough to tip me over the edge.”

Crowley wouldn’t have said it was a squeak, the sudden indignant sound that had escaped him, but he couldn’t find a more appropriate word for it.

“You - you _kissed_ me, angel.”

“I did.”

“You _love_ me.” Saying it out loud didn’t help him believe it.

“I do.” Aziraphale admitted. “I’m sorry it took me so long, my... my dearest. My dear Crowley. If I thought I could have done that before without Falling, I would have scarcely done anything else since the early ‘40s.”

A small silence fell over them, then.

Crowley felt as if the very sands of time were slipping through his fingertips.

“Well,” he choked out. “Well. Didn’t work did it. Didn’t fucking work. Any other bright ideas?”

“I’m afraid not. It was certainly worth a try, though. And I dare say, if it’s not too bold of me... despite the dire circumstances, I rather enjoyed the kiss.”

A bitter sob rose up and spilled out of Crowley’s mouth. His sunglasses found themselves upon his forehead as he pressed knuckles into his eyes. “Thing is. You’ve got to mean it, angel. Can’t Fall if your heart’s not in it.”

Aziraphale had mistaken his feelings, that was it. His ridiculous angel loved everything, even a lowly demon like him. He really was too good for this fucking world. Crowley sniffed.

“Oh, _Crowley_. Of course I mean it, you silly demon.” Aziraphale’s eyes were honest and bright when Crowley dared to look at them again, and so full of fondness that it almost hurt to hold his gaze. “I’ve never loved anything so deeply, as I do you.”

“Nahhhh.” Crowley looked away. “Nah angel, that’s bollocks. You can’t love me more than you love books, or cocoa, or that buttered toasted brioche thing they do down the -”

“Oh now, really! Would you kindly shut up, for once, Crowley! I’m trying to make a... a declaration of love!”

“That’s hardly demonic,” sniffled Crowley, hiccuping. “Prob’ly be better if you owned up to something else. If you’re still looking to Fall, I mean. Don’t suppose you’ve murdered anyone recently?”

“Crowley.”

“This is shit, angel. This is the shittest thing you’ve ever gone and done. I hope you know that. You bastard.”

He didn’t know when it happened, but he’d shifted Aziraphale into his lap, cradling him close. The angel’s wings were splayed out over his knees and the floor, nothing but dead weight, but so soft and downy. Still white, still hopelessly white. Only his angel could admit to loving a demon, _kiss_ a demon even, and still be unable to Fall.

The absolute tit.

It was a wonder Crowley put up with him.

“Why don’t you think up some lustful thoughts, or - or something useful,” Crowley groused, wetly, rubbing his nose with his sleeve and clearing his throat, “help move things along a bit.”

“Oh,” breathed Aziraphale, eyes unspeakably blue. The angel held his gaze as if he were enraptured. As if it were Crowley that was the beautiful one. “I’ve had my fair share of lustful thoughts this past century, I hardly think that’ll do it.”

Crowley wanted to know every single one of them. But it looked like they’d run out of time.

“Alright,” he said miserably, voice not breaking, not cracking like fragile glass underfoot. “Alright, so I’ll just pick you up then, carry you to the Bentley. We’ll go out on the town and stir some mischief up, go steal some traffic cones, or covet someone’s ass.”

Aziraphale let out a soft giggle. “That would be wonderful,” he whispered. His eyes at half mast.

“And - and you can gorge yourself on those macarons you like so much, at that little place in Burlington arcade, I mean, eat hundreds of the bloody things, the salted caramel ones, your favourites.”

“How... how perfectly... devilish.”

“And then, that’s Gluttony done, right, and - and if that doesn’t do it, we’ll just - what’s next, Sloth - we’ll - we’ll sleep for a century, just you and me. Get a huge bed. With pillows. Loadsa pillows. A fuck tonne of pillows. I’ll tuck you in, angel. We’ll cuddle. That’ll do it.”

“Oh, you wicked thing,” the angel murmured fondly.

Crowley pressed their foreheads together. Aziraphale’s breath was a light brush of butterfly wings across his cheek.

“Don’t go,” he pleaded.

Aziraphale’s trembles had died down, leaving soft, almost sleepy limbs in their wake. Like the angel was languishing in a warm bath, slipping slowly below the surface. “If I must,” he murmured, “I can think of no better way than in your arms, my love. I... I’m selfish... to the last.”

There was blood on Crowley’s shirt, he felt it sticking to his skin as he gathered the angel closer.

“Fuck, angel, don’t say shit like that. Please.”

“It is a tad melodramatic,” agreed Aziraphale, eyes wet with unspoken things. “Would it be... terribly forward of me... to kiss you again?”

Crowley pressed their lips together without hesitation. It was wet. One, or both of them, were crying.

He broke away when Aziraphale stopped kissing him back.

“... Angel?” He breathed against the soft lips, pulling back to look at him.

His angel’s eyes were closed, and they didn’t reopen, even when Crowley put a shaking hand against his cold cheek, and brushed a thumb along the skin there, smearing a line of drying blood. His head lolled gently to the side, expression slack and peaceful.

“Angel?” Crowley asked again.

On the floor, one of Aziraphale’s hands lay, fingers curled inwards. The other, that had been pressed against Crowley’s chest, palm flat over his heart, slowly lost its grip.

Crowley felt a low keening sound, racked with pain, start somewhere inside of him and tangle in his throat.

He clutched him closer, so tightly he thought their bones might break, as if he could hold on enough that it might stop his angel’s soul from leaving. He clenched his teeth and wrenched his chin up and cursed Her name to the ceiling.

“You can’t have him!” he hissed. “He’s mine! He’s mine.” And then softer, desperate, pleading. “Please. I know he’s the best of you, I know you don’t want to give him up, I wouldn’t either, but you had your chance and look what’s bloody happened. Just look what you’ve done.”

He sobbed.

“Please... I’ll take care of him, I promise. Please. _Please_.”

There was no answer, there never was.

He lowered his head and gently kissed Aziraphale’s closed eyelids.

“Don’t go.” The demon bit out. “Don’t leave me. You bastard. You utter bastard, don’t you _dare_ leave me like this.”

It took him then, the wrenching, clawing thing in his chest, and he couldn’t stop his wings from breaking free. They surrounded them both, hiding them from view until it was just the two of them alone in the universe. Nothing else mattered, nothing else had ever mattered really.

Aziraphale had always glowed in the darkness before, a small warm star in the cosmos, a candle lit in the window to call him home, but now, sheltered in the half-light of Crowley’s black feathers, it was as if someone had taken a breath, and gently blown out the light.

Crowley held the limp body close, pressing his forehead against Aziraphale’s cold one. Their noses touched. He could pretend the other was sleeping, if the angel had ever indulged in such a thing.

“I won’t let you go, angel.” Crowley promised, darkly. His yellow eyes grew more demonic by the second. “You’ve gone and fucking done it now. Did you think I’d just let you leave me? Wherever you’ve gone... wherever you are, angel. I’ll come to you.”

And with that, he closed his eyes, and followed Aziraphale into the dark.

Of course he did. He always did. His idiot angel had no sense of self-preservation. Aziraphale always took so much looking after, always stepping gleefully into harm’s way with a bright smile, always blindly jumping into a spot of danger, always making Crowley leg it half way across the country to grab his arm with a roll of his eyes and help the hapless idiot out of whatever mess he’d plunged headfirst into.

But it was different this time.

This time, Crowley knew there was no hope he could bring his angel back. Not even with all of the demonic wiles at his disposal, his cavalier fanged grin, or his penchant for showing up in the nick of time with a witty jab at his angel’s tendency towards playing the damsel in distress. There would be no retiring to the bookshop for celebratory drinks, no toasting themselves and their narrow escapes, no exchanging knowing smiles over the rims of wine glasses as they got completely sloshed on the sofa in the bookshop’s back room.

Not this time.

Crowley might not be able to save his angel, but he would still follow him, all the same. He reached out a hand into the darkness. Laced their fingers together. And let himself be dragged down.

He could think of no better way to go than in his angel’s arms.

* * *

And then, against all odds, he opened his eyes.

One blue and one golden slitted eye looked back at him. One black wing was draped over his knee, one white trailing along the floor.

“... Angel?”

He dared to hope.

His angel smiled. Brightly, joyously, impossibly. “My dearest heart. My dearest Crowley. I don’t wish to sound ungrateful... but, what the _**fuck**_ -”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed! I may turn this into a Hurt!Aziraphale series, or maybe continue with an epilogue, if this story is well received. Comments or kudos are greatly appreciated! Please let me know if you’d like to see more of these types of stories! :) I love you all.


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